Jeff said:
I'm a 2nd year EE student, and I have a general background in
electronics. I'm trtying to get started in making my own circuit
boards. I've done some research on the web, but there is too much out
there.
Can anyone recommend what to buy, and where to buy it. I'd like to
make double-sided boards, but I'll settle for single-sided. I'm a poor
college student so I can't spend too much.
Well, you'll need three things at least.
* You'll need PCB software, which usually requires input from a schematic
netlist, but you certainly can enter a netlist by hand, but this gets very
tedious with modern high pin count parts, and is very error-prone.
But if you just want to make a board with a 28 pin DIP like a microcontroller,
and some parts like resistors and LEDS, it should be fine.
* When your layout is done, your layout software can output photoplot files,
which is what the people that physically build the PCB use to make the patterns.
If you want to make your own boards, you'll need a way to transfer that pattern
yourself onto a piece of copper-clad board. You can either print with a laser
printer to something called Press'n'peel and transfer the pattern directly with
a clothes iron (not a soldering iron
), or you print with a laser to a
transparency and use special boards that are light sensitive to expose your
artwork. You'll need a good UV source and some chemicals to develop the board.
You also need to clean the board before to make sure the artwork is on there
nice and good. Usually I use a sponge with an abrasive cleaner like Ajax, then I
rinse with tap water for a minute, then pre-etch the board for 30 seconds-ish,
then rinse again, then dry with a shammy.
* Once the artwork is on the board, you'll need some etchant to remove the
unwanted copper. I still use ferric chloride because it's cheap and it tastes
good. There are other etchants out there like ammonium persulphate, which is a
powder you mix with water, but doesn't taste nearly as good.
Etchants are
fairly dangerous and can react wildly with metals, so you'll need nice plastic
containers to hold the ethchant. I use dollar store food containers.
You are on your own as to which software to use. Google around for something
called Eagle, people say it's good.
Also, be ready to try several times before you get some joy. And always use a
laser printer. I'm sure your school has a print shop or something like that. And
do some visual tests first, print on paper and check to see if your parts line
up on the printout, because I've seen something like +/- 5% variation in size
for so-called 1:1 printouts.
And for double-sided boards, try to get it all on one side, double-sided is too
much trouble unless it's a ground plane.